Should I use shipping estimate calculator on product page?

Question

It's almost like common sense (at least by observing many different online stores) to show a shipping estimate cost on the shopping cart page. With this, the user have the information of how much the full purchase will cost before entering the checkout process, where he will finally complete the transaction.

But... How about the product page. Does it make sense to show the same shipping calculator also on the product page?

If the user is only selecting one product, It seems fine. The final shipping cost will be the same in the cart page. However, if the user already has other products on the shopping cart, the shipping estimate on the product page would return a cheaper value than the full shopping cart.

Is there any other thing to consider to decide wether or not to put it on the product page.

Answer 1

When you mean shipping estimate there's 2 factors to consider. How soon and how much? (Also consider that free shipping is actually common among regional e-commerce stores)

Some websites show these as USPs e.g. Free shipping above 40$, shipping within 3 days. While these are generic rules, they give customers assurance early in their journey on the online store.

To answer your question, you can show the shipping estimate at different points your users journey. On the catalog(as a filter), product, cart or checkout. The sooner the user knows the shipping cost the easier it will be to make an informed decision? For this you might want to do some user testing on actual users to see what works on your online shop.

Also consider to be able to calculate shipping cost you will need your customer to give some input about where the delivery will be to. One example i've seen is where users can select their city or their postal code. of course this will give an estimate. Hope this helps.